Interaction Between Aircraft Maintenance Aspects and Flight Operations in the Army Aviation, Research Paper Example

Abstract

The primary objective of Army aviation maintenance is to provide safe, mission capable aircraft that fulfills all mission requirements. The security, efficiency, and success of all flight missions and operations are directly dependent on productive aviation maintenance management. Effective maintenance programs that increase battlefield mobility are developed by maintenance managers in peacetime, conflict, and war environments. Contemporary Army aviation maintenance system is presented as a three-level system: Organizational Maintenance (O-Level), Intermediate Maintenance (I-Level), and Depot Maintenance (D-Level). The primary task and focus of aviation maintenance units is to functionally organize and implement Aviation Unit Maintenance (AVUM), Aviation Intermediate Maintenance (AVIM) for the United States aviation force. The maintenance department is managed by maintenance officer, responsible for planning, organizing, and controlling the production efforts, and his subordinates who are accountable to the commanding officer for the attainment of set objectives. Army aviation maintenance is accomplished by three major methods: crew chief method, dock method, and production line method. Army aviation maintenance department has a certain structure with its own line of staff responsibilities, thus fulfilling all the requirements for mission accomplishment. Only 30 percent of program’s cost is spent towards purchasing the equipment and the remaining 70 percent towards its maintenance. Maintenance expenses are the biggest expenditures of operating any aircraft, thus the costs greatly exceed the immediate costs of equipment and materials.

Flight operations facility is heavily dependent on effective aircraft maintenance. The combination of aircraft equipment readiness, efficient usage of manpower and information, and productive maintenance management ensure the security and success of all flight operations. The right aviation assets are significant for the Army’s ability to sustain battlefield mobility. For instance, the maintenance and repair of highly complex aircraft is exceptionally important. To make sure that critical assets remain ready to fight, a highly developed maintenance system has built up from years of peacetime and combat operational knowledge. Practice has shown that experienced managers who understand the complexity of the Army aviation assets and the importance of these assets to battlefield mobility must be able to organize an effective maintenance program. United States look for possible ways to accomplish its strategic objectives in three various environments, thus using each and every element of national power. Peacetime, conflict, and war are the major environments that aviation maintenance must to be able to function in. Peacetime operations are categorized as support operations and/or stability operations. Even though the mission of aviation and the dimensions of employment tend to change depending on the environment, the role of aviation maintenance predominantly remains constant.

Contemporary Army aviation maintenance system is defined as a three-level system, thus consisting of Aviation Unit Maintenance (AVUM), Aviation Intermediate Maintenance (AVIM), and depot level maintenance. They also can be referred to Organizational Maintenance (O-Level), Intermediate Maintenance (I-Level), and Depot Maintenance (D-Level). Organizational maintenance is an everyday work that an operating unit accomplishes in support of its own operations. The major task of the O-level activity is to maintain its aircraft and equipment in a full mission capable status while improving the local maintenance process. At this level maintenance involves line operations, like inspections, servicing, and handling, as well as periodic inspections of aircraft equipment and associated tests. Repairs and minor adjustments are also included into O-level maintenance and they do not require shop facilities as well as the removal and installation of components, thus performed in assigned facilities. For example, a squadron may obtain a variety of assigned facilities or may share the facilities with one or more other squadrons. O-level activity requires permanently assigned sailors normally to perform organizational maintenance. The operations maintenance division (OMD) performs O-level maintenance at naval air stations, thus providing extensive O-level maintenance and other assistance to transient aircraft. I-level maintenance is performed in centralized facilities providing the support of operating activities within a designated geographical region, at a particular base or station, and on aviation ships. The main task of I-level maintenance procedure is to keep up the combat readiness of supported assets by providing efficient and on-time material support at the nearest location with the lowest practical resource expenditure. Permanently and temporarily assigned sailors from tenant squadrons provide intermediate maintenance activities. In case when these squadrons deploy, their intermediate maintenance sailors accompany the squadron and are temporarily assigned to the aircraft intermediate maintenance department (AIMD). Depot-level maintenance supports both O-level and I-level by providing engineering assistance and performing maintenance that organizational and intermediate groups cannot manage without. Depot maintenance must be accomplished in an industrial-type facility that may either be civilian or military. Standard depot maintenance (SDLM) includes overhaul, repair, and modification of aircraft components and equipment. Depot maintenance also involves the process of manufacturing aeronautical parts for spares, kits for aircraft, and the modification of equipment. The depot level or a lower level also installs the spare parts and incorporates modification kits. The task and focus of aviation maintenance units is adjusted to functionally organize and provide AVUM and AVIM for the United States aviation force. They are staffed for the most part by Aviation Branch personnel, thus providing a unique maintenance and supply support to aviation forces and organizations. Aviation maintenance and supply – both technical and unit – must cooperate to return the maximum amount of equipment to the unit being used. Air and ground transportation must also be closely synchronized with aviation maintenance and supply support. Considering supply locations is efficient when planning aviation maintenance support positions. Both air and ground transportation systems are targeted to deliver repair parts, evacuate unserviceable materiel, deploy aviation maintenance units, and recover downed aircraft. Aviation maintenance support units rely on transportation support from other units, thus having limited organic transportation potential.

Management in an aviation maintenance organization is the implementation of authority and responsibility for the best performance of the mission, tasks, and work of the maintenance department. The maintenance officer, with the help of subordinate officers, is responsible for managing the maintenance department and is accountable to the commanding officer for the accomplishment of department’s mission. The maintenance officer uses the guidance in directives from higher authority when managing the maintenance department. Major management responsibilities of the maintenance officer are planning, organizing, and controlling the production efforts. Along with subordinate officers he coordinates subordinate divisions to conform to local and higher authority maintenance policies and directives. Consequently, the organizational structure of a maintenance department builds up a strong communication chain of authority from the maintenance officer down to the technician who performs aircraft maintenance. There certain segments of the department that report directly to the department head are called divisions, which are subdivided into branches and branches into sections. Functioning in any type of aviation environment is a challenging task. Maintenance is a definite requirement for each and every mechanical ground equipment, ground support equipment, trucks and so forth. However, there is a significant distinction between maintaining equipment and maintaining aircraft. Catastrophic results can occur if any aircraft system fails at a critical phase of flight. Rotary-wing aircraft requires even more intense maintenance having many highly balanced, moving, and rotating parts. Consequently, the challenge for the aviation maintenance manager is to make sure that the assets the commander needs are provided by the maintenance program, not compromising determined maintenance safety standards. So consistently made right decisions are the key to manager’s success and will result in successful mission accomplishment. The main objective of Army aviation maintenance is to provide safe, mission-capable aircraft that fulfils all mission requirements. Army aviation missions primarily implicate combat and CS in time of war. In peacetime, however, the major task and mission is providing efficient trainings for combat. Even though peacetime training requirements are different from wartime combat requirements, they are almost as stringent. The maintenance manager has to understand the significance of aircraft availability if the unit’s task is to accomplish its mission in both war and peace. Achieving the maintenance objective becomes more challenging in case when resources are limited. This creates a secondary objective of providing aircraft availability in an economical and timely manner using resources that are actually available.

There are three major methods of performing maintenance: crew chief method, dock method, and production line method. Crew chief method is the main method of managing maintenance on Army aircraft. It is undertaken by a crew chief who is assigned to the aircraft, thus becoming the primary maintenance person for that aircraft. In case when the aircraft requires extensive maintenance, the crew chief will send a request to AVUM maintenance personnel and receive assistance. Dock method is used for aircraft undergoing extensive repairs or lengthy inspections. This method requires the usage of a fixed maintenance dock or bay. In fact, the dock could be a certain location in a hangar or store, a parking spot on the flight line, or any predetermined location. The aircraft typically stays in the maintenance dock until all maintenance is completed by the maintenance crews or teams who rotate to and from the aircraft. In fact, the dock method is predominantly implemented at AVUM units, AVIM units, and depots. Production line method is normally used for aircraft undertaking extensive modifications or total overhaul as at Army depot or contractor facility. It can be comparable to an automobile production line, apart from the fact that the aircraft or components can be disassembled or assembled using this system. As a result, examples of the production line method can be observed at any airline overhaul facility. The fundamental characteristic of this method is that the aircraft is required to move through the disassembly or assembly area while maintenance crews or teams perform their particular tasks at a fixed location.

Each and every aircraft maintenance organization has a certain structure that exists to help carry out the responsibilities which are required for mission accomplishment. Though all aviation maintenance activities are somehow similar in mission, operation, and administration, it is only practical and efficient that they be standardized in these areas as much as possible. A properly organized and administered aircraft maintenance department should rank high in such areas as safety, performance, and training of maintenance technicians, unit combat readiness, evaluation of performance, management control of the organization etc. Every division, branch, section, or work center of the organization has its own line or staff responsibilities. A line relationship is a communication chain that exists between senior personnel and their subordinates, thus being a direct supervisory relationship that includes work assignments to subordinates. A staff relationship is a communication chain that occurs between an advisory staff supervisor and a production line supervisor. In fact, the staff personnel deal with administrative service and support of the production effort. Helping military troops keep battlefield tools up to date and ready for combat is the primary mission of contract field service representatives. Battlefield logistics are seriously confronted by the fact that while combat weapons have become highly sophisticated tools of war, the battleground has remained a hostile environment of blazing heat, clinging mud, blowing dust, and bitter cold, testing the bounds of the soldiers who fight and the weapons they carry into battle. The acquisition process for those new weapons systems tends to be time-consuming and pricy, but it is not even nearly as costly as maintaining that equipment.

Weapons movement is essential aspect of support of flight operations. In order for squadron personnel to comply with the short turnaround time of the flight schedule requirements, weapons must be preassembled and placed in staging areas on the hangar deck with enough lead-time. The hangar-deck officer must coordinate regarding the use of the hangar deck as a weapon staging area. These weapons must not interfere with the aircraft movement or obstruct fire lanes; however, they must be placed so that they are protected by the hangar-bay sprinkler system. In order to provide a mean for jettisoning the weapons overboard in case of an emergency, this area should be located as close as possible to the aircraft elevator doors. Every time a new weapon is positioned on the hangar deck, a security watch must be provided in order to restrict the area to authorized personnel only and initiate movement of the weapons in case of an emergency. The weapons staging area is located on a flight deck outboard of the island structure and inboard of the catwalk or deck edge for aircraft carriers, thus commonly called the “bomb farm”. The security staff of this area maintains direct communication with the aviation ordnance control station (AOCS). The weapons staging area also includes a jettison emergency ramp, which in the rigged position forms a ramp from the flight deck edge to an opening in the outboard bulkhead of the catwalk. This feature establishes an extra path for moving weapons in case an emergency occurs. In addition, jettison ramps located in front and behind on the port and stand-board sides of the flick deck so aircraft loading team can jettison weapons during an emergency. When the emergency jettison ramps are rigged they bypass the catwalk and safety net, though forming a part of the catwalk structure when in the stowed position. The weapon staging area is routinely restocked with ordnance from the hangar deck staging area between the launch and recovery of aircraft. The weapons are transferred from the hangar deck to the flight deck by the upper-stage weapons elevators or deck-edge aircraft elevators. As estimated 30 percent of a program’s cost is spent towards purchasing the equipment. On the other hand, the remaining 70 percent is spent towards supporting and maintaining it, which is why the U.S. military has to guarantee that the soldiers who maintain those weapons have the support they need from original equipment manufacturers to keep the equipment combat-ready.

The objective of the aviation maintenance management is the achievement and continuous improvement of aviation material readiness and safety through the efficient use of resources. Maintenance expense is the biggest expenditure of operating any aircraft, thus the costs going far beyond the immediate costs of equipment and materials. Aircraft maintenance includes Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services (PMCS), which cover inspections, services, testing, classification, and special scheduled inspections. The primary mission of providing maintenance on Army aircraft under the preventive maintenance system is to predict, prevent, detect, and correct maintenance problems before they actually happen. Therefore, AVUM units usually perform most scheduled inspections under the preventive maintenance system, although some are performed at the AVIM level. As a result of these inspections equipment is systematically examined at predetermined intervals, which are specified in aircraft flight hours. There is a number of adjoining factors affecting the military aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) market. The major ones are the radical modification in armed forces’ missions profile and the emergence of silent investors that will create new opportunities to a number of niche MRO providers. The major concern is the possible reduction in budgets, which will definitely create the need for a broad rationalization process. In order to achieve reduced total operating costs several changes have to take place: experiences achieved in the commercial area to be adopted; design and maintenance philosophies to change and fit into customers’ requirements; and new alliances focused on total package services to take shape.

References

Headquarters Department of the Army. (2000). Army Aviation Maintenance: FM 3-04.500. Retrieved February 17, 2009, from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-04-500/index.html

Headquarters Department of the Army. Army Aviation Operations: FM 1-100. Retrieved February 17, 2009, from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/1-100/toc.htm

Headquarters Department of the Army. Flight Regulations: AR 95-1. Retrieved February 17, 2009, from http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/publications/army_regulations/ar-951.shtml

Nelms, D. W. (2008). Aviation Maintenance: Military: Supporting the Military Maintainers. Retrieved February 17, 2009 from http://www.aviationtoday.com/am/categories/military/22399.html

Pillsbury, J. H. (2006). Condition Based Maintenance for Army Aviation. Retrieved February 17, 2009, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3723/is_200601/ai_n17179935